Jackpot wagering systems are well known in land-based and online casinos. The most common such wagering system is found in a simple three-reel slot machine game. Each reel of the slot machine has, say, 30 indexed positions, some of which may display a corresponding indicium. A player of the slot machine is required to place a wager by introducing coins, tokens or credit into the slot machine, which then enables the reels to be spun and to come to rest at any of the indexed positions. One combination of indexed rest positions usually allows the player to win a prize consisting of a fixed jackpot. A slot machine with this particular geometry provides the player with a 1 in 27 000 chance of winning the fixed jackpot.
In order to take advantage of the random nature of the indexed rest positions of the reels, it is known to replace the fixed jackpot by a progressive jackpot in which a proportion of each wager placed by the player of the slot machine is used to increment the jackpot progressively. The randomness makes it possible for the progressive jackpot to become large relative to the fixed jackpot described above, which enhances the attractiveness of the slot machine to would-be players thereof. It must, of course, be appreciated that the randomness also raises the possibility of the progressive jackpot being won when it is small relative to the above fixed jackpot.
The probability of winning the jackpot is the reciprocal of the number of all possible outcomes of the game, which will be referred to as the jackpot cycle of the game, for convenience. As an illustration, the jackpot cycle of the three-reel slot machine earlier in this specification is 27 000. This means that, on average, 27 000 outcomes of the game must be determined in order for the contents of the progressive jackpot, or accumulation account, to be won by the player.
The next step in the evolution of jackpot wagering systems was to link multiple slot machines having identical jackpot cycles to the same progressive jackpot, leading to the creation of larger and more attractive jackpots. Initially, the multiple identical slot machines linked to such progressive jackpots were in close proximity, such as within a land-based casino, but the advent of low-cost telecommunication soon enabled multiple clusters of identical slot machines to be linked to a single progressive jackpot. It is a characteristic of such distributed progressive jackpot wagering systems that they are restricted to casinos belonging to a single business enterprise.
The advent of the Internet has led to a proliferation of online casinos, bringing online gaming within the reach of anyone with access to the World Wide Web of the Internet. Jackpot wagering systems and progressive jackpot wagering systems have now become available through such online casinos. Online progressive jackpot wagering systems have evolved further to a point where it is now known for players at competing online casinos to be able to play identical casino games linked to a common progressive jackpot. Access to these types of progressive jackpot wagering systems is provided through jackpot portals on the World Wide Web.
An advantage of online jackpot wagering systems is that they can be operated in conjunction with casino games having very large jackpot cycles, which allows for progressive jackpots of substantial sizes to accumulate. Although large progressive jackpots are desirable to players, it is necessarily so that large progressive jackpots are won less frequently than smaller ones, and this fact can act as a disincentive to would-be players of the game, who may become disillusioned or bored and leave the casino games.